Circadian Rhythm and Blues
by Rachkmar
Summary: In the year 2150 a new crew will gather and a legend will be revived.


Please R&R!

**Circadian Rhythm and Blues  
Welcome to Tokyo**

Laura Grant paced her Hong Kong hotel room, from the closet to her bed. Two open suitcases sat on her bed, into which she packed her clothes from the closet. Except for a red dress, which lay on the foot of the bed, partially hanging over.

Laura checked the dressers, closet, under the bed, ad any place she could think of where something might hide and, convinced she missed nothing, closed the suitcases. She turned and looked out of the large window, which looked down on Hong Kong of 2021 and all the neon signs, giant televisions, and other large buildings.

She wasn't worried that someone would see her prancing around in her underwear, however. Almost one hundred and twenty stories above the ground in one of the tallest hotels in the world it was unlikely that anyone would be able to see her in the first place. And if they did, what did she care? She was in great shape.

And her fiancee Dan agreed. Several times he had remarked that he was glad he had found a woman without an image problem. And certainly he had no problem with her image.

Her phone beeped and Laura tapped her earpiece. "Hello?"

"Hi, honey," said the familiar voice of her fiancee. Laura smiled.

Laura had remarked to Dan several times that he seemed to know when she was thinking about him. He would just laugh as if was an obvious fact and tell her he could.

"How are you?" Dan said.

"HI Dan. I'm ready to come home," Laura responded.

Laura had spent the past few days trying to convince the team running the hyperspace gate program that there were flaws in the software, not to mention the hardware, that could fail catastrophically at any random period, resulting in some nasty things.

Laura worked with several others to convince the gate program managers that an upgrade of their software was necessary for the stability and security and safety of the entire gate system. She knew also that another team was trying to convince them to upgrade their hardware for the same reason.

Initially the gate team had simply told them they were wrong and had showed them the door. After many flaws continued to crop up, and programmers on the project pushed, the gate team agreed to give the upgrade proposals a second look.

And so they went round and round for almost a week until they arrived at today. Today the team began to show signs of giving in. They agreed to "look at the proposal" over the winter holidays and let everyone know their decision after the first of the year.

And so Laura was here, packing for home, and for Dan. She was going to go back and spend time with her love and their families and forget the stress of the past week. And when she came back she would be Misses Dan Larsen.

"How did the meeting go?" he asked.

"I think it went well," Laura said. "I'm pretty sure they're going to go for the upgrades."

"Really? That's great! I'm glad to hear it! From what I understand the entire system needs to be updated."

"You're right about that. What they've got in place at the moment just isn't adequate. Sooner, probably rather than later, something is going to happen."

Laura sat on the edge of the bed. She hadn't realized just how tired she was. Now that she was beginning to relax, it felt as if every muscle in her body had been tensed and used to near exhaustion. She wanted to lay back and tell Dan she would be a day late getting home.

"Still there?" Dan's voice woke her from her reverie.

"Yeah. I was just thinking of telling you I was going to be a day late and going back to sleep 'til tomorrow. But, tired as I am, I'd rather get back home. I've missed seeing you, and everyone else, too. That's one of the things that's bugged me about being here is I don't get to see you."

"Not to put a guilt trip on you," Dan said "but I've missed you too. We all have. And we're anxious to have you get back and see the arrangements. You'll love them." Laura detected a bit of pride in Dan's voice.

"Of that I have no doubt," Laura smiled. "And if everything goes right I should be back in a day or two."

There was a knock at the door. The man outside said he was the porter ready to take her and her things down.

"I have to go, love. The bellhop is here." Laura stood up and began slipping into the tight red dress. She was obviously going for something sexy.

On the other end of the line Dan laughed.

"Bellhop. I haven't heard that term in a long time."

Dan made a kissing sound over the phone. "I'll be waiting for you when you get here."

Laura kisses back. "I look forward to it. I love you."

"I love you too."

Laura reached up and tapped her earpiece. Then she let the porter in. He was a Chinese man in his forties, dressed in the hotel's uniform. And he spoke with a faded British accent. Laura remembered from her history lessons that Hong Kong had been under British rule until a couple of years before she was born.

"Hello, ma'am," the porter said, and bowed slightly. "Is everything ready?"

Laura stepped back, letting the porter in. "Yes, everything is ready. Thank you."

The porter looked around to see if anything besides the suitcases on the bed remained. Not seeing anything he took the suitcases and indicated that Laura should lead the way.

---------------

On board the 767 flying over Tokyo, banking for a landing, Laura looked out of the window of the ChinaAir at Tokyo below her. She hadn't gotten a chance to see it on the way to China and wouldn't get a chance to see it now either. She only had an hour in which to catch her connecting flight back to the States.

Although the sun was high in the sky, being noon, Laura could still see the crescent moon a few degrees above the horizon.

As Laura watched a bright light began to appear at the bottom tip of the crescent. And then she reeled back as something flew through the skin of the plane. It was like a lightning bug, able to float through things, floated through the plane. And looking around her she saw more of them.

Laura looked back to the moon and the light emanating from the lower point of the crescent. It continued to get brighter and brighter, captivating her. The light was blinding, like looking into the sun itself, but she couldn't look away.

And just when she couldn't take it anymore and was sure she had to look away there was a violent jolt, like the plane had hit something or had come to an abrupt stop, and her head hit the seat in front of her.

----------

When Laura came to she smelled smoke. And she heard fire. Had she dreamed the whole thing? Was she back home in front of a fireplace?

But the uncomfortable position she was in told her otherwise.

She opened her eyes and looked around. There were bodies and body parts strewn all over the place. And blood too. And everything was on fire. The top of the cabin. The aisles. The seats around her. And everything smelled like burning flesh.

And then Laura realized that she was on fire. Quickly patting the flames she managed to put them out. And now that she was regaining her senses she realized she needed to get out of the plane. But how would she do that?

Laura remembered the safety information that the attendants tell you before take off.

Looking around Laura saw the nearest exit was just a few rows in front of her. The door had already been opened. Or maybe it had opened from the impact. She couldn't tell, but hoped that it had been opened by someone else. If she had survived, surely someone else had, too.

Climbing onto the wing the smoke billowing out caused her to cough and blink. When her eyes cleared she saw the tip of the wing was touching the ground and she could get down that way. The other survivors must have come this way. But where were they? And where was the help? The ambulances? The firetrucks?

It wasn't until she climbed down from the wing that she looked at the airport. She got about three steps before she realized it too was on fire. Looking around she realized everything was on fire. Other planes nearby. Luggage carries. Anything that could burn was on fire.

Laura sat down on the tarmac. What had happened? Had other planes crashed and set more fires? She didn't see any other wrecks. And why had she survived when apparently no one else did? Was she the only survivor at the airport? Tokyo? Japan?

A million things raced through her brain. Maybe it was the apocalypse and she was the last person alive. Or maybe she was still dreaming and would wake up in a hospital, doctors and nurses telling her she had survived the plane crash and was going to be just fine.

A million things. She just needed to know which.

After a few minutes of sitting on warm tarmac Laura got up and started to walk. She was going to find the way out of the airport. And then she would find out what was going on.


End file.
